


life's incredible again

by almostafantasia



Series: Clexa Week 2018 [5]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Clexa Week 2018, Clexaweek2018, Day 5, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Rivals in a Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostafantasia/pseuds/almostafantasia
Summary: Every city needs a superhero. This city has two.Fierce rivals by day and lovers by night, Clarke and Lexa learn the struggles of leading a double life, particularly when it becomes impossible to stop their personal and professional lives from becoming entangled.





	life's incredible again

**Author's Note:**

> title shamelessly lifted from the soundtrack to the incredibles

It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

At the speed that Clarke hurtles through the sky, the wind in her face is strong, striking her skin with a surprising numbness. Yet it’s only a shock for the first ten seconds of high altitude flight, after that it’s a refreshing rush in her face, pushing her hair out of her eyes so that it flickers in tandem with the deep blue cape that billows out behind her, fluttering rhythmically as she flies.

The world below Clarke manages to be both huge and tiny at the same time. Huge, because from up here the land stretches out seemingly infinitely, expanses of open fields and distant mountain ranges beyond the familiar skyline of the city that she calls home. And yet tiny, because the details below her are so comparatively miniscule from such an altitude – skyscrapers that would tower above her in the streets are so small that she could fit ten of them in the palm of her hand, lines of traffic pass along the roads like trains of ants marching back to their nest. It’s an eye-opening perspective into Planet Earth and Clarke _loves_ it.

Flying is every bit as _really fucking awesome_ as it sounds and Clarke is two hundred percent certain that she’ll never tire of it. Every flight feels just like the first one; exciting, exhilarating, and like Clarke is the star of her very own action movie. Contrary to popular belief, not every hero is blessed with the ability to fly – Clarke is just eternally grateful that she’s one of the ones who is because not only is it the most convenient mode of transport, but she looks wicked cool whilst doing it.

She hasn’t always been quite so adept at flying though. In fact, it took weeks, if not months to nail the perfect landing. Clarke still cringes internally every time she recalls her first ever public flight. The way that she mistimed the touchdown and oh-so-spectacularly crashed into a wall in front of about a billion photographers is almost certainly going to keep Clarke awake at night for years to come. Clarke’s superhero powers might stop her from getting any serious physical bruising but they do nothing to prevent the damage to her ego.

The newspaper headlines the following morning had been something else entirely. Clarke wanted to scream in rage when she saw them – she saved the lives of two young children that day, for Christ’s sake, and yet the front page of every major newspaper was emblazoned with a high definition photograph of her mid-crash, accompanied by a headline that inevitably ridiculed the absence of a heroic entrance.

And no matter how much Raven tries to convince her otherwise, being known as the girl who fell from the sky isn’t good for her superhero street cred.

“It could be your thing!” Raven insists.

“It’s not a thing!” Clarke protests with a whine, burying her face in her hands and once again dying a little bit inside as she recalls her collision with a wall and wishes she’d taken the time to practice a stylish landing before jetting out to save the world for the first time.

“No, hear me out,” says Raven “This is good.”

The look on Raven’s face, the wide eyes that tell Clarke that Raven is spouting her ridiculous ideas aloud right as they appear in her head, is enough for Clarke to know that what Raven has to tell her will be anything but good.

Rolling her eyes in anticipation of what will inevitably be a load of total crap, Clarke indulges Raven anyway.

“What?”

“Okay,” Raven says with a worrying amount of enthusiasm, “but what if you make a thing out of crashing in unexpectedly to bust the villains. Like you drop in through the ceiling and then when the dust from the rubble has cleared, you say ‘ _sorry about the mess_ ’ and then _bam_! Arrested! Villainy over.”

Clarke has no words, rendered speechless from the pure insanity of the words leaving Raven’s mouth.

“Do you know what that is?” Raven asks, bright-eyed, when Clarke gives her suggestion no verbal response.

“It’s stupid,” Clarke answers without hesitation.

“Badass!” Raven corrects her enthusiastically. “It’s _badass_ , Clarke. Do you want to be swept under the rug with every other hero or do you want to be _iconic_?”

“The girl who fell from the sky, Raven,” Clarke says with a whine. “I can’t be _that_ hero. It’s way too Hunger Games to be credible.”

“Skygirl,” Raven suggests, bright-eyed and full of an enthusiasm that Clarke finds herself unable to mirror. “Come on, that sounds cool and you know it.”

And thus, Skygirl is born.

* * *

It’s one of the worst feelings in the world.

Clarke arrives at the scene of a major bank robbery that Raven tipped her off about to find that the day has already been saved by another superhero. The road is blocked with almost half a dozen police cars and the sidewalk outside the bank is crowded – emergency personnel including a squad of men with riot shields and heavy rifles strapped to their sides, reporters trying to force their way closer despite the bulky camera equipment that each team has, curious passers-by wondering what is causing the interruption to their perfectly ordinary lives.

Yet despite the crowds outside the bank, Clarke only notices one person. The red cape of the Commander amidst the reporters clamouring for the perfect front page headline has Clarke’s insides twisting in an unsettling mixture of disappointment and anger.

“Raven,” Clarke hisses, pressing the button on the tiny piece of technology concealed inside her ear to activate it.

After a couple of seconds, Raven’s familiar voice crackles through the earpiece.

“This is _The Raven_ to Skygirl. What’s up?”

“Putting ‘the’ in front of your own name doesn’t make it a code name,” Clarke reminds Raven dismissively, before she launches into the reason why she requested her assistant’s presence in her ear. “But what the _hell_ , Raven? I’m not the first one here. What went wrong?”

“ _What went wrong_?” Raven parrots back, incredulity in her voice. “The situation has been sorted, right?”

“Well yes, but…”

“Then nothing went wrong,” Raven interrupts Clarke’s complaints with a sense of finality and a _so-done-with-your-bullshit_ edge to her tone.

“But it wasn’t me who saved the day,” Clarke whines in an attempt to gain some sympathy, despite the futility of arguing against Raven. “The Commander…”

“And there it is,” says Raven. “The Commander.”

Clarke’s insides lurch with guilt. She can face off against any number of villains, and yet her biggest rival always seems to be the one person who has exactly the same goals as her – to keep this city as safe and as crimeless as possible.

Feuds between superheroes never end well. Just last year there was a huge scandal that decorated the headlines for weeks when a rivalry in a neighbouring city became so out of control that the two heroes involved ended up putting more lives at risk than they were saving. Clarke likes to think that she would never be self-absorbed enough to let things between Skygirl and the Commander get quite that bad – for a start, neither of them has a fragile male ego to escalate the contention between them – but she knows why Raven is warning her all the same.

Clarke’s pride, however, is an ugly creature that sucks the life out of anything positive in the face of a defeat such as this. She can feel it now, slowly crawling out from hibernation and enveloping every fibre of her being like a cloud of dark fog, crackling with negative energy and draining her brain of all humility and common sense.

“She got here first, Raven,” Clarke complains, even against all her better judgement. “Not only is this a complete waste of my time, but I have to suffer through the knowledge that _she_ is the hero today. If only it was heroic to wipe that smug smile off her face with my fist.”

“Clarke…” Raven cautions her, the harshness of her warning in Clarke’s ear causing Clarke to wince.

“I don’t understand it,” Clarke continues to whine, even despite the warnings coming from both her assistant and the rational part of her own brain.  “She can’t even _fly_. How the hell is that stupid ass car of hers faster than flying?”

“Clarke, just put on a smile and…” Raven pauses and lets out a huff of breath, before she continues, “… get yourself out of there before you do something stupid that will do much more damage to your reputation than being beaten to the scene of the crime by another hero.”

“Too late,” Clarke mumbles, pressing the button on the earpiece to mute herself and mentally preparing herself for what is about to come when she spots a familiar figure striding in her direction, dressed in all black with the exception of the crimson cape that hangs majestically from one shoulder.

“Skygirl,” the newcomer greets her with a nod.

“Commander,” Clarke responds through clenched teeth. “Congratulations.”

Clarke isn’t sure what is more infuriating to her, the Commander’s nonchalant shrug or the words that leave her mouth next, clearly intended to rile Clarke up.

“Just another day at work,” the Commander says indifferently. “I do what I can for my people.”

“ _Your_ people?” Clarke scoffs, unable to stop herself from commenting on the pretentiousness of the Commander’s words.

“My people, your people, the people of this city,” shrugs the Commander. “Whatever you want to call them. When they need a hero, I’m here to serve them.”

Clarke narrows her eyes, ignoring the persistent beeping in her ear that lets her know that Raven is still desperately trying to speak with her so that she can give the Commander her full attention.

“It was just a bank robbery,” she attempt to diminish the Commander’s accomplishment today. “It’s not like there were any lives actually in danger.”

“Say that to the man who got shot in the leg while the robbers made their escape,” the Commander replies without even a moment of hesitation, unaffected by Clarke’s scornful words. “And _just a bank robbery_ was an attempt to steal almost thirty million dollars. If they had been successful, that would have been the biggest bank robbery that this city has ever seen.”

With a smile of blatantly forced politeness, Clarke replies snidely, “What a good job you were here to save the day.”

Either the Commander doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm in Clarke’s voice, or she just chooses to be the better person and ignore it – Clarke resents her even more if the latter is true – because she does nothing but shrug modestly as she takes a couple of steps back.

“I guess so,” she agrees. “See you later, Skygirl.”

Ignoring the flash of the cameras pointed at her from where the press huddle in a group on the sidewalk, the Commander returns to her vehicle, a flashy black sports car with doors that open upwards instead of out, an unnecessary number of vents and spoilers and a slightly off-centre red stripe that spans the length of the car that is just as obnoxious as the vehicle’s owner.

Finally choosing to no longer ignore the beeping in her ear, Clarke turns her earpiece back onto its normal setting and doesn’t even wait for half a second before growling her complaints to Raven.

“I hope you’re proud of me. I was _this_ close to punching her.”

“Careful, Clarke,” says Raven, making no attempt to hide her huff of irritation. “The girl who fell from the sky is probably only one negative headline away from ruination.”

“I know,” agrees Clarke, “and that’s why I kept my hands to myself.”

Even as she says the words, Clarke finds herself rolling her eyes as the engine of the black and red sports car starts up, revving loudly a couple of times, before the car zips away down the road in the blink of an eye, almost wishing that her fist had found its home in the warpaint adorned face of her rival.

“The biggest attempted bank robbery this city has ever seen,” she whines for Raven’s benefit, recalling the Commander’s earlier words. “Why couldn’t it have been me who got there first?”

“We’ll get the next one, I promise,” says Raven’s assuring voice in her ear.

Clarke is almost certain that always arriving second to the scene will be just as damning for her reputation as punching another superhero in the face.

“We’d better!”

* * *

 

In her twenty four years of life, and particularly in the last eight months of carrying the burdens of the city on her shoulder, Clarke has come to learn that one of the best ways to deal with a bad day is to take up residence in a dark corner of a bar and drown her sadness in a drink or several.

One drink allows her to be sullen and disheartened by the day’s loss, two gives her an excuse for cursing like a sailor and badmouthing the villain who has wronged her, three takes her mind off the thing that’s getting her down. Four drinks are often enough to get Clarke up on her feet and dancing to forget her troubles.

Tonight Clarke is only on her first drink – a pint of dark ale with a taste as bitter as Clarke’s feelings of resentment for her rival hero. The lighting in the bar isn’t quite gloomy enough to reflect her mood – it’s not late enough in the night for the proprietor to turn the lights down properly yet – but Clarke uses the beer in her hand as a barrier between herself and the rest of the room. Her body is slumped back against the bench in the booth that she occupies with two of her best friends, blocking out their conversations as she takes sip after meagre sip, each one accompanied by a grimace at the taste of the ale that Clarke isn’t entirely sure she even likes.

At the risk of being melodramatic, Clarke decides that today may have been one of her worst defeats as a superhero – perhaps almost worse than losing to the bad guys themselves. (Deep down, Clarke knows that isn’t true, but her ego still aches from the battering it received at the hands of the Commander and her offensively flashy sports car and so the humiliation feels infinitely worse than any of her previous failures.)

“Hey, Sulkface!”

Clarke is snatched roughly out of her own crippling self-pity by the way that Raven aggressively snaps her fingers in front of Clarke’s face, forcing her to pay attention to her surroundings instead of wallowing in the defeat she faced earlier today.

“Are you going to participate in the conversations or are you just going to sulk in a corner and make us regret bringing you along with us?” Raven asks her, one of her eyebrows quirked up in a judgemental arch.

“What’s the matter?” asks Octavia, placing her drink down on the table that the three of them are seated around and leaning on one of her elbows to frown across at Clarke.

“She realised that she’s only a second rate hero,” Raven unhelpfully interjects, rolling her eyes.

“Excuse me?” Clarke exclaims, raising her voice and accompanying her verbal retaliation with a sharp kick under the table aimed at Raven’s shin and taking a small amount of joy from the yelp of pain that Raven lets out. “I’m a first rate hero, _you’re_ a second rate assistant.” Pointing an accusatory finger in Raven’s direction, Clarke continues, “ _You_ didn’t call me soon enough. _You_ didn’t make my suit aerodynamic enough.”

“Your suit _is_ aerodynamic enough,” Raven bickers back, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest in indignance. “And there’s nothing I can do if somebody else gets there before you do.”

They sulk on opposite sides of the table, Octavia the awkward third party with her eyes flickering between Raven’s folded arms and Clarke, who picks up her glass and passive-aggressively takes a gulp of the dark liquid within. When neither of them says anything – and when Octavia lets out a disapproving sigh at their childish behaviour – Clarke realises that maybe she was a little too harsh with her words and concedes.

“I know,” she admits reluctantly, placing her empty glass back down on the table and looking up at Raven. “I’m sorry. It’s just … it has to be _her_ , doesn’t it? Always having to prove that she’s better than I am.”

Accepting Clarke’s verbal olive branch, Raven’s mouth turns up at the corners almost imperceptibly and says, “I bet she doesn’t fly into walls with as much style as you do.”

Clarke flops backwards, her head falling against the wall behind her chair as she lets out a pained groan in response to Raven’s little dig. The animosity between them is replaced with playful teasing that Clarke has grown to love in her relationship with her two best friends.

“God,” Clarke whines, as Raven and Octavia share a look and some barely concealed laughter between them. “that was _one_ time.”

Octavia reaches across with both hands and uses the index finger of each to push at the soft skin of Clarke’s cheeks, forcing her lips up into a smile.

“Cheer up, Clarke,” she says, undeterred by the way that Clarke whines and wriggles and slaps at the hands on her face. “You’ve got a date tonight.”

“Ugh,” Clarke groans, falling back in her chair as Octavia’s hands finally relinquish their attack on her face. “Don’t remind me. I _hate_ first dates.”

“But,” Raven interjects, raising a single finger to emphasise her point, “you know what you do like?” Raven looks across to Octavia and then answers her own question as if the answer is obvious. “Sex. And what do first dates sometimes lead to?”

“Sex,” Octavia answers without hesitation, nodding along with Raven. She adds matter-of-factly, “You’ve been going through a dry spell recently Clarke. Maybe this date will be good for you.”

Pouting, Clarke replies abjectly, “Four months is not a dry spell.”

Raven and Octavia share a glance of wide-eyed incredulity as if to say _oh yes it is_ , before Raven mumbles under her breath, “Maybe for you it’s not.”

If Raven and Octavia are trying to bring Clarke out of her sulk and encourage her to join in with their conversations with any kind of genuine enthusiasm, they’re doing an awful job. Clarke only ends up feeling sorrier for herself, taking another mournful swig from her glass at the reminder that her personal life is about as successful as her recent heroic endeavours.

Clarke’s lack of a verbal response is as good of a concession as her actually admitting aloud that Raven is right. Clarke pointedly ignores the grin that is shared between the two girls opposite her, desperately hoping that they will take this small victory and leave it at that. Her hope is misguided however – Clarke should really know after so many years of tight friendship that these two will never pass up an opportunity for a little harmless teasing at Clarke’s expense.

“Tonight could be the night, Clarke!” Raven says enthusiastically, leaning across the table with both elbows propped up on the dark wood as she gives Clarke a look of bright-eyed glee.

“Oh yeah,” comes Octavia’s equally unhelpful contribution. “Tonight Clarke is gonna be getting some!”

“Clarke? Hi!”

As a shadow falls over their table, Clarke propels both of her legs outward, the toe of her shoe colliding with the front of her friends’ legs, and feels only a tiny bit guilty about the fact that Raven is probably going to wake up tomorrow morning with a littering of purple bruises down her shins courtesy of Clarke. It has the desired effect – both Raven and Octavia stop with the raucous teasing and the crude hand gestures and fall quiet with just a few soft murmurings of discomfort as they rub the sore spots where Clarke has kicked them.

“Lexa,” Clarke says enthusiastically, her sullen mood from just seconds ago forgotten and replaced, jumping to her feet and greeting her date with a slightly awkward one-armed hug. “It’s so nice to see you! I promise I don’t know these two hooligans at all. Anything you might have overheard them saying is entirely untrue.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Lexa assures her with an honest smile. Gesturing towards the bar, she asks, “Shall we?”

Clarke nods and lets Lexa lead her over to the bar, ignoring Raven’s shout after her of, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Clarke takes a deep breath to compose herself, unsure where the nerves that twist and clench at her insides have come from so suddenly. Barely even a minute ago she was unaffected by the prospect of tonight’s date, cataloguing it in her mind as nothing more than a waste of an evening that could otherwise be spent in the comfort of her own bed with a bag of chips and her Netflix account, but with her date for the evening standing beside her – her totally gorgeous date who is without a doubt completely out of Clarke’s league – Clarke is grateful, for the first time, for her past self’s impulsive decision to say yes when Lexa asked her out.

Clarke takes in her date’s appearance, from the sheer white top that hangs loosely from her shoulders to the black skinny jeans that flatter her long legs. Lexa’s hair is effortlessly brushed over one shoulder so that the deep brown curls tumble down one side and her makeup is understated, a slight smoky eye that makes the green of her irises pop with colour, even in the dim light of the bar.

“You look great tonight,” Clarke compliments her.

“Thanks, so do you,” Lexa replies with a smile. Reaching into the small black purse that hangs from her shoulder, Lexa pulls out a wallet and leans on the wooden countertop of the bar, then asks, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Clarke fumbles around for her own wallet in protest, saying as she does so, “It’s fine, I can pay for…”

“No, I insist,” Lexa tells her, placing a gentle hand on Clarke’s arm to stop her from continuing the search for her own money. “Please, I’m trying to be charming and I probably can’t do that with conversation alone when I’m this nervous! You can buy the next drink. What will you have?”

Clarke reluctantly concedes defeat and picks up the cocktail menu that sits on the bar in front of them. She browses for just a few seconds, angling the menu so that Lexa can take a look for herself, then points at her order.

“Two mojitos, please,” Lexa tells the bartender, who starts mixing their drinks with a nod.

“Thanks,” Clarke mumbles gratefully. With the barest hint of a teasing smile beginning to form on her lips, she nudges Lexa softly and says, “Who says I’m not going to flee before we get to a second drink?”

Lexa doesn’t answer immediately – with the arrival of their drinks on the bar, she spends a few moments exchanging the right amount of cash with the bartender, then picks up her own glass and nods for Clarke to do the same before she speaks again.

“So I have however long it takes for you to finish this drink to convince you to stay for another one?” she asks Clarke, raising the glass to her face and taking a small sip through the straw. “Challenge accepted.”

As Lexa points to an empty booth across the room, thankfully one that is far away from where Octavia and Raven still sit, their eyes on Clarke as they avidly watch her every move, Clarke smiles to herself and tells Lexa, “Then you need to act fast. You should know that I used to be something of a drinking champion. At college I could down a beer in seven seconds.”

Lexa’s face, as they take their new seats opposite each other at the secluded table in the far corner, expresses a mixture of awe and amusement.

“Wow.”

Realising what she’s just said – and _who_ she’s just admitted that to – Clarke feels her cheeks reddening. The warm air in the bar, nor the alcohol in her system from the drink she’s already shared with Raven and Octavia, does nothing to help as her cheeks burn in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, that’s not the kind of thing I should be admitting on a first date,” she attempts to redeem herself, not quite able to look Lexa in the eye out of fear that she might see proof that she’s scared her date off already are mere minutes together. “I tend to babble when I’m nervous.”

Unperturbed and with a hint of a joke in her voice, Lexa doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “Maybe you’ll scare me away before you have the chance to buy that second drink.”

Clarke feels her entire body relax at Lexa’s words. She reaches out for her cocktail, fingers curling around the glass and slipping ever so slightly in the condensation formed by the cool liquid inside, raising the straw to her lips and taking a sip. It’s a pleasant contrast to the heat that burns in her cheeks, a cooling sensation that is more than welcome.

“I hope not!” Clarke responds. “I promise, that’s not my plan tonight.”

Lexa leans one elbow on the table, looking at Clarke with glinting green eyes from beneath long lashes as she lowers her voice and asks, “So what is your plan?”

She wraps her lips around the straw protruding from her drink, and Clarke forgets how to breathe as she watches Lexa’s cheeks hollow in a visual that Clarke didn’t realise she’d be attracted to until she saw it in front of her. Her mind straying to places she’s pretty sure are supposed to be forbidden this early on a first date, Clarke is finally grateful for the blush that already taints her cheeks, hiding the fresh embarrassment that accompanies her thoughts.

“I’m not sure there is a plan,” Clarke confesses. Gripping the edge of the table to tether herself to reality, she continues, “But I’d like to make a good impression on you.” Clarke looks up at Lexa with a hint of mischief in her eyes, and then adds, “Which is why you should know that I have absolutely never downed an entire beer in one go.”

Lexa tips her head back and laughs, a delicate burst of laughter that seems to radiate euphoria. Clarke decides that it’s one of the most beautiful sounds she’s ever heard, unexpectedly soft and yet it warms Clarke right to her soul and fills her with a desire – no, a _need_ – to hear that same sound over and over again.

Her eyes full of intrigue, Lexa asks Clarke, “And if I’m into the beer guzzling types?”

Clarke can’t do anything to stop the grin that spreads across her face as she quips back, “Then maybe you’re on a date with the right girl.”

“So,” says Lexa, a smile pulling at her own lips. “Drinking champion. What else do I need to know about you before I commit to that second drink?”

“Let me see,” says Clarke, feigning deep concentration as she starts to list things off by counting on her fingers. “I’m a cocaine addict. I steal money from the homeless.” She grins across at Lexa to reinforce the fact that she’s joking, as if it isn’t already abundantly clear, then adds, “Oh, and I voted for Trump!”

Unperturbed, Lexa doesn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second before completing Clarke’s list with one of her own, “And you use comedy as a defence mechanism when somebody tries to get close to you.”

The smile falls off Clarke’s face as suddenly as a lead weight falling to the ground. Taken aback by Lexa’s terrifyingly accurate assessment of the situation, it takes Clarke a good few seconds to regain her composure enough to give her response.

“Well, shit,” she says, guiltily dropping her gaze as she finds herself unable to make eye contact with the girl across from her. “Am I that easy to read?”

“I took a Psychology elective in my freshman year of college and now I half-think I’m qualified to be some kind of therapist,” Lexa shrugs. “But I’m serious, I want to get to know you. The real you.”

Clarke dares to glance up at Lexa and is met with a stare of the utmost honesty, so intense that she almost feels like there is something passing between them. Clarke is struck by thoughts of capes and masks and saving the world and her heart does a little flip in her chest that she’s not entirely convinced is caused by butterflies alone. She wonders just how much of _her_ Lexa wants to get to know, or if she’s talking about the Skygirl persona too.

And she knows that Lexa feels it too, because Lexa’s gaze falters and a moment of weakness passes between them, and Clarke wonders for the first time if maybe going on this date is a terrible idea after all.

Clarke is used to saving people every day but it is Lexa who saves the conversation, reaching across the table and taking Clarke’s fingers in her own. She gives the digits a little squeeze, leaning a little bit closer to Clarke as she says ever so softly, “I want to see if I’m as attracted to what’s going on up there as I am to what I see on the outside.”

“Flatterer.”

“Please? I’m serious.”

Clarke can stop villains from doing heinous things, she can rescue people from inside burning buildings that threaten to creak and crumble to the ground or pull them from the twisted wreck of an automobile accident without even thinking twice, but she will never _ever_ be able to save herself from the inescapable magnetism of a beautiful girl holding her hand and looking at her with those earnest eyes that could hold an entire galaxy in their depth.

“Okay,” Clarke says, taking a deep breath to steady her thoughts. “So I grew up in New York. The state not the city…”

* * *

 

There isn’t even a question in Clarke’s mind about a second drink when the time comes. She finishes her first far too quickly to be satisfied with just the one, so enraptured by her date and the conversations they share that she’s pretty sure a continuation of this date beyond the first drink is as much of a necessity for her survival as the oxygen that she breathes into her lungs.

Clarke makes the offer when both of their glasses are empty and she exhales in relief when Lexa agrees almost immediately; her only hesitation is a quick joke about Clarke having not quite scared her away completely yet.

They dance around the subject of work with ease. Like a stream winding its way down the mountainside, gradually gaining momentum as it travels further away from its source, the conversation keeps going with each twist, flowing effortlessly from the topics of school and family and favourite things, right down to who they would cast as themselves in a movie about their own life – Kate McKinnon for Clarke and Daisy Ridley for Lexa. There’s no need to talk about work when they could quite easily talk all night, and perhaps every other night for the rest of the month, without even getting close to exhausting the conversation of other subject matter.

There is just the tiniest amount of unease in Clarke’s stomach though. It feels like they should maybe at least acknowledge it, even for just a second before moving on, a quick _hey I’m a superhero and I know that you are too and yes, maybe I raged a little bit earlier today when you stole my glory but how about we agree to another date?_

When Lexa excuses herself to go and use the bathroom after drink number two, Clarke finally lets herself relax a little bit and slouches against the back of her seat. She reaches for her phone for the first time all evening, surprised when the screen lights up to tell her that the date that has raced past and felt like a mere twenty minutes or so, has actually been going on for almost an hour and a half.

The grin that she’s trying – and failing – to fight back, gets wiped off her faced with an unpleasant abruptness as not Lexa, but both Raven and Octavia drop into the bench on the other side of Clarke’s booth.

“Soooo,” Raven draws out the vowel, and the look of mischievous curiosity on her face has Clarke rolling her eyes. “How is it going?”

“It’s good,” Clarke admits, nodding her head slowly. It takes a lot of willpower, and the knowledge that Lexa’s return from the bathroom could be imminent, to stop herself from immediately gushing about what an enjoyable night she’s having. “I like her. She’s very easy to talk to.”

“And hot!” Octavia adds, reaching across the table to give Clarke a congratulatory nudge on the arm. “Nice one, Clarke.”

Clarke can’t help but smile because yes, the conversation with Lexa has been enthralling, but the view that she’s had all evening has certainly not gone unappreciated either.

“So what’s the plan?” Raven asks. Wiggling her eyebrows suggestively and accompanied by what can only be described as a giggle from Octavia, she continues, “Are you going to take her home for a little bit of…?”

“What?” Clarke interjects in protest as soon as she realises what her friends are implying. “No!”

Raven looks genuinely disappointed as she pouts and asks, “Why not?”

“Because…” Clarke spares a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the bathroom to make sure that Lexa isn’t on her way back, then answers, “Because I actually like her. As in I like her enough to want to see her again and I don’t want to screw that up by … well, by screwing _her_.”

Raven does nothing but stare at Clarke for a few long seconds, her head tilted ever so slightly to one side and her expression bordering on unimpressed.

“That is literally _the gayest_ ,” Raven says these two words emphatically, gesticulating with her hand as she does so, “thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Agreed,” nods Octavia, arms folded across her chest and her expression as serious as it would be if they were discussing something with slightly more substance than Clarke’s current level of gay.

They both still immediately, then hurry back up to their feet, shuffling awkwardly along the bench until they are no longer sitting opposite Clarke, and when she follows the direction that both pairs of eyes keep glancing across in, she notices that Lexa is making her way back across the bar from the ladies restroom.

“Anyway,” Raven says to Clarke, “we actually came over here to tell you that we’re going home now.”

“Yeah,” agrees Octavia. “Enjoy the rest of you night.”

“Use protection!” Raven wickedly blurts out, before the pair make a hasty departure just as Lexa arrives back at the booth.

Clarke’s cheeks burn with embarrassment at her friend’s parting words, knowing that there isn’t a possibility that Lexa didn’t hear them too.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke is quick in her attempt to justify Raven’s words. The very last thing she wants Lexa to think after hitting it off so well tonight is that Clarke is only interested in her for the sex. “They’re idiots. If I haven’t scared you away yet then I’m sure that they will.”

As she lowers herself back into the seat across from Clarke, Lexa reaches across the table and rests her hand over Clarke’s. The touch is unexpected and Clarke startles slightly at first, but there’s a warmth that radiates from Lexa’s touch, a soothing rush of something that spreads along Clarke’s arm from the place where their hands meet, until the comfort of the gesture envelopes her entire body and causes her to relax.

“My foster sister is exactly the same,” Lexa tells Clarke, her voice low and just as comforting as the way that her thumb starts rubbing tender circles on the soft skin of the back of Clarke’s hand. “I share an apartment with her and she’s been insufferable to live with ever since she found out that I had a date tonight. She’s been giving me unhelpful and inappropriate advice for the last two days.”

“Such as?” Clarke dares to ask.

Lexa shakes her head ever so slowly and, as a pretty pink flush starts to decorate her own sharp cheekbones, answers, “Such as what kind of underwear I should wear.”

Clarke flusters a little at the implication – there’s only one direction that tonight could go in to make Lexa’s choice of underwear relevant on this date – and finds herself unable to make eye contact with Lexa. All of a sudden Raven and Octavia are voices in her head, two little devils costumed all in red on one of her shoulders and nudging her towards the bad decisions while the rational part of her own brain tries to counterbalance their corruption.

When Clarke gives no response, Lexa squeezes her hand gently and laughs softly as she says, “Don’t freak out. I’m not here to sleep with you.”

Clarke doesn’t know whether Lexa’s confession leaves her relieved or disappointed and realises that the way that her insides clench uncomfortably is probably due to a bitter internal battle between the two.

Manoeuvring the hand that still rests on top of Clarke’s until she can push her fingers between Clarke’s so that their hands sits as an intertwined knot of fingers on the table between them, Lexa lowers her voice even further and concludes in a voice that almost has Clarke spreading her legs for Lexa right here in this booth, “Not yet, anyway.”

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” Clarke warns Lexa, though the way that her voice comes out as barely more than a rasp is surely a giveaway as to the current direction of her thoughts.

“Sorry,” Lexa replies, though Clarke spots a little glint in the green eyes across from her that Lexa’s apology is not entirely full of meaning. Changing the subject suddenly, Lexa says, “I really don’t want tonight to end.”

“Why do I sense a ‘but’?” Clarke asks.

To Clarke’s ultimate chagrin, Lexa untangles their fingers and reaches for her phone, pressing the button to unlock it as she glances at the time when it flashes up on the screen.

“But it’s late, and I can’t have another drink without risking getting tipsy and I don’t want to end up saying something stupid that might blow my chances with you.”

“That would take a lot,” Clarke admits, and the slight widening of Lexa’s eyes as if she can’t believe that those words have just left Clarke’s mouth makes the slightly risqué confession entirely worth the butterflies in Clarke’s chest.

“I have things to do tomorrow morning,” Lexa say, and despite the intent behind her words, the hesitance in her voice is perhaps giving Clarke her own personal renaissance. “I should be getting back.”

Clarke nods, understanding that this date has to come to an end at some point, albeit reluctantly.

Perhaps misinterpreting Clarke’s unenthusiastic agreement as mild resentment towards her decision to leave, Lexa jumps in quickly, her words hurried and apologetic.

“Wait, I promise I’m not blowing you off!” she assures Clarke, reaching across to take Clarke’s hand once more as if she just can’t get enough of having Clarke’s fingers underneath her own. “I’ve had an incredible time tonight and if I could stay here for a few more hours then I would. Can I at least walk you home?” Without even allowing Clarke time to answer, Lexa flusters even further and then apologises, “Sorry, you probably think I’m trying something on with you. I promise that I’m not. I don’t really go on dates at all so I’m trying very hard to make this one count by being respectful and chivalrous, and that includes walking you home.”

Clarke’s heart, if possible, swells inside her chest as Lexa scrambles over her words, watching as the other girl’s cheeks get steadily pinker with each second that passes. She would perhaps be amused at Lexa’s unabashed eagerness to impress Clarke, were Clarke not feeling the same kind of irrepressible need to conclude this date in a way that leaves Lexa desperate to come back for more.

“Okay,” Clarke agrees, smiling slyly across at the flustered girl. “Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You kiss me goodnight when we get there.”

A slow smile spreads across Lexa’s face.

“That’s a deal I can agree to.”

* * *

 

The journey home is more of a stroll that it is a walk. They dawdle along the sidewalk, entangled fingers swinging between them as they make their way to Clarke’s apartment, slowly so as to postpone the inevitable goodbye for as long as possible.

The streets that they walk along hold hundreds of stories and Lexa points out a shuttered ice cream parlour that her foster mother used to take her and her sister to when they were younger, and tells of how they would be allowed to get chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles on their cones if they’d been especially well-behaved. In exchange, Clarke makes Lexa laugh by recounting the story of an infamous night out in the nightclub that they pass just two blocks from Clarke’s apartment, when Octavia had been mistaken for some minor celebrity that none of them had heard of and gained them all exclusive access to the club’s VIP lounge.

But the night has to come to an end at some point, despite Clarke deliberately taking them the long way home, and the final turn onto the familiar stretch of sidewalk leading up to Clarke’s apartment building is a sad one.

Clarke says nothing as she leads Lexa into the atrium of her building and into the elevator, still prolonging their evening together, and Lexa stays silent too, squeezing Clarke’s hand just a little bit tighter as the doors close behind them and the tinny female voice announces over the intercom that the elevator is going up.

With their combined refusal to acknowledge that they will have to part ways sooner than either would like, Clarke realises how easy it would be to ignore the goodbye altogether and just drag Lexa inside her apartment for a much steamier continuation of the date. She remembers what Lexa said earlier about not intending to sleep with Clarke yet and recalls her own conversation with Raven and Octavia along the same vein. What she told them was true – after such a surprisingly good date, she doesn’t want to fuck it up by having sex too soon – but in this moment it almost feels like it could be detrimental for them to not seal the deal tonight.

Detrimental to Clarke’s lady parts, anyway, which are practically aching with the need to be touched by the girl so obliviously holding her hand as they take the ride up to Clarke’s apartment.

The invasive ping of the elevator as it arrives on Clarke’s floor snaps Clarke out of her thoughts and she shakes her head to bring herself back into the reality of attempted rational thought. She really needs to stop thinking with her vagina instead of her brain.

“This is me.”

The two seconds that Clarke spends fumbling around in her jacket pocket for the keys to her apartment is long enough for Lexa to take a step closer. She releases Clarke’s hand, and Clarke has barely a second to mourn the loss of the feeling of Lexa’s warm fingers slotted between her own, before those same fingers find a new home cupping Clarke’s jaw. Her fingertips rest just behind Clarke’s ear, where the soft curls at her hairline meet the skin of her neck, while Lexa’s thumb strokes a gentle path back and forth across Clarke’s cheek.

If Lexa’s goal is to leave Clarke in complete agony while she waits for the gap between their lips to close, then she is successful. Clarke’s entire body thrums in anticipation and the feeling of Lexa’s palm cradling the side of her face is certainly not helping the matter, yet Lexa seems unwilling to lean in the final few inches, apparently perfectly content to continue staring at Clarke with a look of gentle wonder in her eyes and the ghost of a smile on her lips.

It seems like an eternity that they are staring at each other. The time in which their eyes remain connected - mouths almost close enough to touch but neither one quite brave enough to make that final move – is long enough for generations to be born and to die, long enough for some species to go extinct and for others to evolve unrecognisably, long enough for entire civilisations to fall until they are the only two remaining, standing pressed against each other as the ruins of humanity crumble around them.

But it’s not quite enough.

With a little grunt of impatience, Clarke tilts her own chin up and closes the gap between them. Lexa’s lips, so much softer than Clarke could have ever imagined, cushion the impact and for a moment Clarke is stunned into stillness, wonderstruck by the overwhelming tenderness of Lexa’s lips and Lexa’s hand and Lexa’s _everything_.

The way that Lexa kisses her, the complete lack of urgency in the way that her lips slide leisurely against Clarke’s, is almost as if they are the only two people in the world. Certainly, Clarke decides, Lexa is the only person in the world that matters right now – nothing is more important than the lips that gently coax her own open, capturing first Clarke’s top, then her bottom lips between Lexa’s own. To Clarke, whose day to day life is always cloaked with the knowledge that Skygirl could get called away to an emergency at any moment, the kiss is a welcome moment of respite from the endless activity that comes with being a superhero.

As delightful as the kiss is, as much as her insides are fluttering at the gentle movement of Lexa’s mouth against her own, Clarke can’t help but want more. The kiss is nice, but it’s _just_ nice – Lexa is being just a little too respectful of Clarke’s boundaries when after so much build up, Clarke is itching for nothing more than to make out with Lexa against the door to her apartment, hot and hungry and so very _gay_.

The sound of Clarke’s keys dropping from her hands and hitting the floor with a metallic clatter is one that barely even registers. All of Clarke’s brain capacity, or at least what little of it hasn’t been turned into a mushy gay puddle by Lexa’s kiss, is focused on the way that her empty hands curl into the folds of Lexa’s top, using her new handholds to simultaneously pull Lexa closer so that there is no space between their bodies and walk her backwards. Any doubt that Clarke might have had about Lexa being into this as much as her are dispelled as Lexa opens her mouth into the kiss more, accepting the swipe of Clarke’s tongue against her upper lip and responding with an intensity that had been lacking just moments ago.

There’s a bit more substance to the kiss now that Clarke is in control, a breathy whimper from Lexa as Clarke backs her into the door, a satisfied hum from Clarke when one of Lexa’s hands fervently buries itself in the untamed blonde curls on the back of her head. Clarke kisses Lexa with almost everything that she’s got, kisses her with her entire body and not just with her mouth – her restless hands smooth up and down Lexa’s sides, her hips push forward into Lexa’s to eliminate any space that might still lie between them. And Lexa responds with just as much enthusiasm, kissing Clarke back as though her life depends on it.

(Clarke is pretty sure that _her_ life depends on Lexa’s kisses, fuelled with a fiery intensity but still laced with a sweet tenderness that seems to encompass Lexa’s being, and the reciprocation of that dependence through Lexa’s movements has Clarke feeling pretty damn good about herself too.)

It almost gets a little too much – _almost_ – and Clarke has to take a moment to catch the breath that Lexa seems to have snatched from her lungs.

Lexa, however, takes Clarke’s momentary pause to take the control back for herself. She uses the hand not buried in Clarke’s hair to steer Clarke by the waist until is it Clarke’s back that is now against the door, then wastes no time at all in peppering the exposed skin of Clarke’s neck with a series of hot, open-mouthed kisses. Clarke lets out a low hum of contentment as her head falls back against the door and her eyes flicker shut – she likes the gentle back and forth of their kisses and the not so gentle way that Lexa scrapes her teeth against the skin just below the plane of Clarke’s jawline.

“You should know that it’s taking all of my self-restraint to – _uh_ , to not drag you inside right now,” Clarke muses aloud, her breath catching slightly in her throat mid-sentence as Lexa’s tongue traces over a particularly sensitive spot just below Clarke’s ear.

Lexa places one more lingering kiss at the juncture between the corner of Clarke’s jaw and her neck, then forcibly drags herself away from Clarke, who feels a sudden rush of desire course through her body in response to the little grunt of disappointment that Lexa lets out as she reluctantly detaches her hands from Clarke’s body and puts a bit of distance between them.

“That wasn’t an invitation to stop,” Clarke jokes, though the smile quickly drops from her face when Lexa looks up with a heaving chest and pupils so wide they could swallow the whole universe.

“Wow,” Lexa exhales. “I’m kind of … well … _yeah_.”

It’s not an articulate way for Lexa to express herself – in fact it’s completely incoherent as a sentence – but Clarke _gets_ it. She feels pretty inarticulate herself right now too.

“I’ve honestly had the best time tonight,” confesses Lexa. “I was … I was nervous, I have to admit, but you far surpassed all of my expectations.” She looks up at Clarke, teeth nibbling at her lower lip in anxiety, before she continues, “I know there’s a rule that the heterosexuals have where they have to wait three days before calling after a first date…”

“Screw the heterosexuals,” Clarke interrupts with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m so glad you said that.” Lexa shoots Clarke a shy smile, then with a more serious expression on her face, continues, “Because I’d really like to see you again and I don’t think I can wait three days before telling you that.”

Trying not to seem too excited, which almost seems futile with the way that her heart is currently performing an Olympic gymnastics routine inside her chest, Clarke replies, “I’d like that too.”

“Great,” says Lexa, breaking out a visible sigh of relief. “So I’ll text you?”

“I’ll be waiting,” nods Clarke.

“Bye, Clarke,” says Lexa, taking a couple of steps backwards towards the elevator. “And thanks for an incredible night.”

“Lexa…”

Upon hearing her name, Lexa’s eyes flicker upwards to look at Clarke’s, and Clarke surges forwards to close the gap between them, desperate to give Lexa one final kiss to remember her by. Her hands find Lexa’s waist and she kisses Lexa with an open mouth, the kiss itself just as filthy as the sound that spills from Lexa’s throat.

Once satisfied that Lexa isn’t going to forget tonight in a hurry, Clarke slowly pulls back, letting her hands drop from Lexa’s waist and bending down to pick up the dropped key.

“Bye,” she says, before turning to slot the key into the lock of the door to her apartment, smiling to herself at the memory of Lexa’s eyes dark, watching her with hunger.

Once inside her apartment, Clarke fusses around with nothing in particular. She takes off her shoes and leaves them by the door, then hangs her jacket over the back of a chair. Her mouth is dry and she takes a tall glass down from one of the shelves in the kitchen, filling it with cold water and draining most of it in one long gulp.

But her hands are restless, as is her mind, still reeling from the kisses with Lexa just on the other side of her front door. Without any further thought, Clarke reaches for her phone and taps out a quick text, unable to wait any longer to talk to Lexa.

**Clarke Griffin  
** _So I don’t think I can wait for your text. Tonight was the most fun I’ve had in a while and I can’t wait to see you again. Get home safe!_

Clarke panics as soon as she presses send, worried that she’s coming on too strong and that she’s going to scare Lexa away, but her fear only last for a handful of seconds, because her screen lights up with a message from Lexa.

**Lexa Woods  
** _Dream of me!_

Lexa’s text finishes with a kissing emoji, and Clarke falls back against the wall with a grin on her face.

Best date _ever_.

**Author's Note:**

> This has the potential to be extended into a multichapter fic. I'm not sure I have the time to continue it but if there's enough interest then it's definitely something that I'll consider.
> 
> Come and talk to me on tumblr [@almostafantasia](http://almostafantasia.tumblr.com)


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